Share And Share Alike
by tielan
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that in any shared household, the bathroom is always the first zone of war. team


**CHALLENGE**: To write the team in a college share-house situation.

**Share And Share Alike**

It is a truth universally acknowledged that in any shared household, the bathroom is always the first zone of war.

While the last barrage is almost always fired in the kitchen when the dishes are growing civilisations along their cheese-cemented edges, and someone's steak has begun to graze gently on the dark green thing that was once a head of iceberg lettuce, and words are exchanged to the effect that yes, he drinks straight out of the milk carton, and yes, she puts the jam in the fridge door instead of beneath the meat keeper, but has anyone happened to notice that all the little packs of dulce de leche M&Ms which were labelled, mark you, _labelled_, are gone and the owner didn't get a single one; inevitably, inescapably, ineluctably, the first point of contention in a shared household is the bathroom.

--

"Oh, come on, come on!"

It's Sunday afternoon. The Denver Broncos are playing the Oakland Raiders on Rodney McKay's plasma TV which John didn't have to argue with McKay to use since McKay's presently out of the house, off at some geek thing.

On this lovely, not-too-cool Sunday afternoon in mid-September, John is parked on the couch with a beer and one of his new roomies.

"You have a bet riding on this game?"

He glances at Teyla Emmagan where she's lying on the spare armchair, her bronzed legs resting up the back of the chair, her bare feet resting on the dingy wallpaper. The textbook she was reading is resting on her stomach and the smooth, bronze line of her throat and jaw are upturned as she regards the screen from her upside-down pose.

"Yeah. My brother." He doesn't elaborate further than that. "Oh, yes! Now, did you see that?"

Jason Elam's just kicked a twenty-yard field goal with barely two minutes to go before the final horn to equalise the scores. A tie is better than a loss in John's eyes - he still can't believe Dave _bet_ on the outcome of this game.

While the Broncos run around the field slapping each other on the shoulderpads, John drinks sdown the rest of his beer and sits back in his armchair, relief felt in every bone of his body.

Near his knee, Teyla twists her head around.

"Why is it that men can kick a foot-long pigskin between two goalposts fifteen feet apart from twenty yards away, but cannot aim a quarter-inch stream of urine from their penis into a circular bowl less than half a metre away?"

John's got his hand halfway through his hair when she asks the question, and it throws him enough to stare at her. "Uh, because we're guys?"

She snorts with laughter. "If you are implying that men as a whole are not very consistent..."

"Hey, don't go turning my words around on me." John warns, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. As roomies go, Teyla's easy on the eyes and hard on the dick. Bronzed and toned, curves in all the right places, long lashes, and dusky lips. So far, she's been good company and good conversation.

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"It was not a rhetorical question."

He takes a minute to catch up with that one. "Um..."

"Next time you miss the toilet bowl, John, please clean it up so I do not step in it."

The denial is automatic. "I don't..."

"You did last night."

"I..." The thing is, John doesn't remember coming in last night. He doesn't remember taking a piss before he went to bed. Of course, he was pretty shitfaced last night - as his residual hangover testifies. There's not a lot he does remember. "Wait, how do you know it was me?"

She sighs as she studies the screen. He's not sure what mystical meaning the upside-down game has to her, since she squints a moment, then transfers her gaze to him. "Because I came out as you were ambling into your room and was forced to clean the toilet before I could use it."

"Oh. Um. Thanks for that."

"I was very annoyed." She says that in the calmest voice he can imagine hearing from a girl who's had to clean up after stepping in someone's piss.

"Are you annoyed now?"

"Only a little." One hand reaches out and pats him on the thigh. He's pretty sure that she doesn't mean it to be quite such a turn-on, but it is. "I know you can aim for the toilet bowl, John. Do so in future, please."

"And if I'm drunk?"

Teyla gives him a chiding look, then, seeing his smiling attempt to charm her, makes a gesture that's probably the closest she's going to get to a shrug while in her upside-down pose on the couch. "You could always just pee sitting down."

John suddenly gets the feeling that if she has to clean up after him again, he _will _pee sitting down for the rest of his life.

--

Rodney's on the phone with Zelenka, arguing over the latest theory that his lab partner has put together for their grad project.

"No, we can't do that. Do you have any idea of the power output on that kind of a--?" His brain stutters to a halt as a tall, dark shadow comes to stand in his doorway.

A tall, dark, half-naked shadow comes to stand in his doorway.

Dex is built tall and lean, and capitalises on that by being disgustingly healthy. He goes jogging every morning, running from the house over to the college campus and back - that's even before he heads in for his classes. While Rodney's staple food groups are caffeine, sugar, salt, and trans fat, Dex eats his way through a commune's worth of fresh food in a week.

Rodney doesn't swing that way, but if he _did_ swing that way, then Ronon Dex would be a prime example of very, _very_ lean beefsteak. With extra beef.

And right now, he's wearing two things: a towel and a scowl.

On the other end of the earpiece, Zelenka bumbles on.

"Radek? Radek! Just hold on a minute, I've got... Um. I'll be back in a minute." He finds the 'hold' button on his Blackberry and tries for bluster. "What is it? I'm kind of busy right now."

Dex holds up an empty bottle of herbal shampoo. "You've been using my shampoo."

Oh, _that_.

There's a moment when Rodney nearly denies it was him. He hates feeling on the defensive, but when talking to a six-foot-two giant with muscles, there's _only_ the defensive.

The big head with it's damp dreadlocks tilts a little to the right, and the heavy eyebrows lift in query.

"Um. About that. I just ran out of shampoo and you know, Sheppard just uses the soap - which is completely gross because I don't think he's ever thought about where the soap's _been_ before he washes his hair with it - and I didn't want to use Teyla's because, well, it smells girly..."

"I buy this special for the dreads," says Dex. Even his voice is beefsteak - all deep and gravelly. "It's expensive."

"Oh." Rodney goes through his mental lists of which things he can probably say which won't end up with his six-foot-two ripped roommate mad at him. "Well, if that's all, then I can pay you back..."

"Five dollars."

Rodney nearly chokes. "Five dolla--?" He breaks off as the big guy shifts. "Okay, okay!" He hunts around in his wallet for a five and hands it over.

"Buy your own shampoo in future."

"Look, I just ran out and I kept forgetting to buy some!" For a month.

The hand with the fiver points at his Blackberry. "Write yourself a reminder."

"What, now?"

"Now." And Ronon waits while Rodney scribbles himself a reminder on a sheet of paper.

"Happy, now?"

The answering grin is a predatory baring of teeth rather than a smile.

--

Teyla had hoped to be able to clean the kitchen before the results of her latest attempt at cooking were discovered by the boys.

Her foster-mother, Sharon, is a reknowned cook in their community, legendary at church potlucks, and famous in the county cook-offs. Her foster-sister Tricia can make a sweet tea that brings a tear to every Southern-bred eye, while guys have fought - actually fought with hand and fist and boot and tooth - over the last scoop of Jacqui's pot roast.

And Teyla boils her eggs dry, every time.

She should never have attempted cookies.

"You know, I thought I smelled something burning out in the driveway," says Rodney as he stumps in the door with a bag of groceries and futilely tries to wave the smoke away. "Guess the cookie attempt didn't turn out so well?"

She points at the baking tray sitting on the table with its forlorn black lumps on it. "I followed the recipe."

"Hey," Rodney eyes her. "You're not crying are you?"

"Of course not," she snaps at him. And she is not going to cry over something so simple and stupid as a batch of cookies.

It is foolish to weep over such a small thing, but she woke up early this morning with menstrual cramps. The pain medication helps a little, but the underlying ache is not so easily banished.

She had hoped the cookies would make her feel better.

"Oh, God, um, Teyla... Hey, it's okay. You don't need to... Shit. Um... Kleenex... Where's the...?"

In spite of the tears, she finds herself laughing at his descent into panic. "Rodney."

"Stay there. Don't cry. It's okay. It's just cookies... Shit."

He rushes off down the hallway, probably trying to find a box of Kleenex in the bathroom, and she lets her legs collapse beneath her as she weeps and laughs and wipes away tears that she isn't sure are from laughing or crying.

When the toilet roll is held out to her, she unwinds a wad and uses it to dab at her eyes with a sigh. "Thank you, Rodney."

"It's just cookies."

"I know. But... It is traditional for Thanksgiving in our family..."

He sits down next to her, stretching his legs out across the linoleum, his back against the kitchen cupboards. "Teyla, I think it's time that you faced a basic truth."

"Yes?"

"Your cooking sucks." Rodney says it with surprising gentleness, an almost sunny tone to his voice. "I mean, no offence, but...it sucks. You might as well accept you're never going to be a cook."

Teyla laughs. It is either that or cry, and she does not feel like crying over burned cookies. Not again. "I know." She pats his arm. "Thank you."

Rodney clambers to his feet and offers a hand to help haul her up. "As a matter of fact, my family has a Thanksgiving tradition, too."

"Yes?"

"Everyone gets grumpy and yells at each other for Thanksgiving. Then we all go our separate ways - except for Dad and Mom and Jeannie, of course - and we don't speak until Christmas." His embarrassment is plain, although there's a hint of defiance in his attitude as he meets her eye and shrugs. "Some traditions aren't supposed to be kept."

For both the reassurance and the confidence about his family, Teyla hugs him.

--

Ronon glances up from the ESPN replays of the Thanksgiving Day games as Rodney storms in the door, mutters something as he passes the entrance to the living room and thumps off down the hall, shaking the house as he goes.

"Guess his Thanksgiving was the usual schtick, then," John says, switching channels as the coach of the Ole Miss Rebels calls for a timeout. "When's Teyla due back?"

"Late."

John flicks through channels with practised ease. "Funny how she's the one without the proper family, but she's the one who looked forward to Thanksgiving the most."

In spite of the cookie-burning incident - discovered when the cookie-bases flatly refused to come off the non-stick baking tray - Teyla went to Thanksgiving with a smile and an invitation to all her roommates that they were welcome if they wished to dump their family.

Ronon wouldn't have minded going, but he'd thought that going back to Sateda wouldn't be so bad.

Stupid thought.

Things weren't the same, whatever Solen said about it. Faces missing, people gone who wouldn't be back, and Melle... Well, Ronon isn't going to think about Melle. Not any more.

The only good thing about going back to Sateda was that he got to give Kel exactly what was coming to him. That had been the best part of Thanksgiving, even if his knuckles still ache.

That's really it, though. Ronon won't be going back again.

God only knows what he's going to do for Christmas.

"You survived yours."

"Barely just. The old man had another go at me for not going to the university of his choice." John makes a face as he settles the channel back to the football. "Should I ask about the knuckles?"

"It was a fight."

"I'm guessed that." John snorts. "Sounds like your Thanksgiving was more adventurous than mine."

Ronon shrugged. "Probably." He climbs up from the couch. "Want a beer?"

"Thanks."

The fridge is full of junk food, empty of the real thing. Ronon grabs a tub of salsa dip and rustles up some only-slightly-stale tortilla chips as he snags the bottle.

Deeper in the house, Rodney's door closes firmly. It doesn't actually slam, but it has the finality of one. McKay isn't going to be coming out and socialising. He's probably had all the society he can take over the weekend and is just looking forward to some time by himself. No sister pestering, no parents nagging, no aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents inquiring.

Relatives are hell. Which is why Ronon doesn't have any he acknowledges anymore.

"Got the munchies?" John asks when the food is laid out on the coffee table.

"Yeah."

"You haven't had enough to eat this weekend already?"

Ronon sits back with a huff and a grin and hands John the Corona. "I'm still watching my waistline."

"You know, I hope Teyla brings back some of her Thanksgiving leftovers," John says after the next touchdown. "Some of that sounded really good."

"Sounds like her mom would be the kind to load her up with food."

"If it means she doesn't have to cook for a while..." They exchange amused glances and lean back to enjoy the chips and salsa and beer.

For a while, there's nothing but the sound of the television and the distant sound of Rodney's computer playing Black Sabbath, probably as he plays World of Warcraft.

John snorts as some advertisement displays an extended family gathered cheerfully around the table for Thanksgiving. "I hate the advertising at this time of year. Thanksgiving, Christmas... Family's not like that."

"Family is," Ronon says and watches John shift in the beanback to stare at him. "Relatives aren't."

Understanding dawns and John lift his beer. "Amen to that."

--

When John announces they're going for Christmas drinks, the other three exchange glances but don't protest. There's no point in protesting for something like this. John usually gets his way.

Rodney baulks at the santa hat until Ronon threatens to superglue it to his hair so they'll have to shave his head to get it off.

One hand claps protectively over his head. "You can't do that! I've got male pattern baldness! Already!"

"Suck it up, Rodney. Wear the damn hat."

Teyla drives because then she gets to keep the keys and they can all catch a taxi home. She doesn't trust the guys not to try to drive while drunk.

It's not a very big car.

"Hey, do you mind not pushing the seat all the way back here?"

"Do you mind not kicking my passenger seat, Rodney?"

"How'd we get stuck in the backseat anyway?"

"Teyla's driving and Ronon's got legs. Hey, since we're in the backseat, we could always make out."

"Ugh. I'd rather kiss a wookie."

Ronon turns around and makes kissy noises at Rodney. The car stops in the middle of the suburban street while Teyla dissolves into laughter.

Kissy faces actually happen once they reach the bar and realise someone's hung up mistletoe in the entryway. Rodney flashes a look of doom around at his roommates. "I don't believe in this shit."

Ronon grins and pecks Teyla on the lips. John takes his time - long enough that Teyla pounds him on the shoulder to make him let her go. "I need to breathe, John!"

John's grin only lasts as long as it takes Ronon to grab him by the shoulders and plant a big smacker on his lips.

Teyla's dissolving into laughter again when John manages to find his feet. Slightly unsteady, but this is a bar, he fits right in. He grabs her elbow, hauls her up. "All right. Funny time's over. Let's find a table and some drinks."

Rodney's got the table, Ronon's got the drinks. Teyla gets the wolf-whistles from the guys at the pool table, John gets the cat-calls from the table of girls in the corner with the 'STOP' sign and the longhorn skull.

"Ah, the Christmas spirit," John says.

"_Seasonal_ spirit," Teyla corrects him.

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Rodney cracks open a peanut and flicks the shell away. "Bah, humbug."

Teyla laughs and reaches over to kiss him on the cheek. "Because you evaded the mistletoe before." The mumble she gets in answer comes with its own flush.

Ronon arrives with the drinks, four Coronas. The one with no lime goes to Rodney. In silent agreement they wait for everyone to lift their bottle to the middle of the table.

"To Christmas spirit."

"To humbuggery."

"To roomies."

"To friends."

They drink.

- **fin** -


End file.
